


H-U-D, D-U-H, I-D-G-A-F

by eggstasy



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Pre-Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 01:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6263320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggstasy/pseuds/eggstasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wash wakes up on the flat of his back, with the Reds and Blues arguing overhead. He remembers a moment like this before in perfect clarity, the turning point of his life, the crux of change that spelled out who and where and with whom he would be for what he hopes is the rest of his life. He also hopes, god he hopes that everything that happened after wasn't just some fever dream brought on by Death raking her fingers through his bones at last. </p><p>A thought occurs to him that Tucker was right.</p><p>He IS hopelessly dramatic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	H-U-D, D-U-H, I-D-G-A-F

Wash wakes up on the flat of his back, with the Reds and Blues arguing overhead. He remembers a moment like this before in perfect clarity, the turning point of his life, the crux of change that spelled out who and where and with whom he would be for what he hopes is the rest of his life. He also hopes, _god_ he hopes that everything that happened after wasn't just some fever dream brought on by Death raking her fingers through his bones at last. 

A thought occurs to him that Tucker was right.

He _is_ hopelessly dramatic.

"I counter with the argument of fuck you, it's on fire. I'm not going back in."

"Grif, there could be survivors! We _have_ to go back in!"

"No dude, there won't be any survivors. You know why? Because if there were, they'd have _survived_ and would be out here by now."

"There could be wounded!"

"Uh and what the hell are we?! _We're_ wounded! I don't know if you noticed but out of the two people with us who can actually do anything, one is out cold and the other fucked off to go exploring. Besides, Carolina told us not to go near the ship until she gets back and you know me, I love following orders."

"You _hate_ following orders."

"True. But that's because I've never gotten an order that was 'sit still and do nothing.' I might have to defect to Blue Team if _she's_ gonna run the show."

"Grif! You no good, damn dirty traitor! I always knew you'd turn your back on us, provided it didn't mean you had to actually go to the effort of turning around! Well, do me a favor and keep your back right there. So I can put a knife in it. Or six rounds of buckshot! Maybe both!"

"Gahhhh oh my god, will the three of you shut up? I'm trying to check his pulse here!"

"Can't you just pull up his biofeed on your HUD?"

"...shut up."

"Yeah Tucker, you didn't really need to go feeling up his neck. Do you have a kink or something?"

"Shut up!"

“Maybe Agent Washington has a kink in _his_ neck, and Tucker was just trying to get it for him. He just was doing a very bad job at it."

"You shut up too."

Wash can't believe he just unconsciously waxed poetic about these assholes. He shoots for, "All of you shut up, my head is killing me," but falls instead around, "allshup, m'kill."

"Oh my god, he's dreaming about killing people. _Freelancers._ I swear to god, how do we keep collecting these things?"

"Um Simmons, that's rude? Agent Washington is not a thing."

"He's not dreaming he's _awake_ ," Tucker says above him and Wash feels an arm come under his shoulders and heft him up. That hurts, okay, that hurts a lot. Ow.

"Oh great, so instead he's just talking about killing people consciously."

"Yeah, you know who else in this group does that all the time? Sarge. Why are the team leaders always bloodthirsty assholes? Or whiny assholes? Actually, why can't either of our teams have a _nice_ leader for once?"

"Trust me dude, it's not all it's cracked up to be. It's kinda creepy."

"Oh yeah, you had that Flowers guy. Man, his fetish count was probably through the _roof_. Did he really make you guys play dress up with him?"

"Oh my god, do not continue this conversation," Wash moans. He opens his eyes and immediately closes them when sunlight stabs through the filter of his visor.

"Agent Washington!" Wash is sure if he had a decibel meter on his HUD it would've registered Caboose's voice somewhere between 'rock concert' and 'atomic explosion.' "You're alive!"

"We _knew_ he was alive, Caboose." Wash feels himself shift and okay, so Tucker's the one who's wedged him upright. "Wash, you good?"

“Yeah," Wash says, and he can almost feel the disbelief radiating off of them. "Why do you guys keep asking me that question if you never believe me?"

"How about because you never tell the truth?"

Wash opens his mouth. Shuts it. Shoots Grif a glare for him to ignore before actually taking a moment to consider the prudence of telling the truth. If they're relying on him to take care of them- well, he _will_ but they deserve to know what they're dealing with. "My head hurts," he admits.

Keeping his eyes open works a lot better after he dims his visor to its lowest setting and he takes a moment to examine them all in turn. Simmons looks fine, as do Caboose and Tucker. Sarge is sitting down with his shotgun in his lap, awkwardly like he's in pain but is doing his best to hide it. Grif isn't putting any weight on his right knee. "Is everyone all right?"

"No I'm wounded," Grif says immediately at the same time Sarge barks, "'Course we're all right! We weren't the ones sprawled out on the ground, letting our teammates getting handsy with us because they don't know their H-U-D from their D-U-H!"

"D-U-H?" Wash asks, retrospectively because he's an idiot.

"As in _DUH_ we're all right, Wash! We're RED TEAM!"

"Excuse him," Grif drawls, limping over to a crate to sit down with a sigh. "He's all fired up because we somehow miraculously escaped death only to be stuck in an even worse situation than before. _AGAIN._ " He fishes through his ammo pouch for a pack of cigarettes he absolutely smuggled illegally onto the ship.

"You were out for a long time," Simmons tells him, and to Wash's great surprise he comes to a crouch in front of him and reaches for the seals on Wash's helmet. When Wash jerks away he gives him this odd tilt of his head before he reaches again. "Relax. Carolina asked us to assess your condition when you woke up."

"Yeah it looked like Tucker was doing plenty of his own assessing," Grif snickers.

Tucker grabs a piece of debris and chucks it at his head.

It kind of settles on Wash then, as Simmons pulls his helmet gently over his head, as the sunlight streams down over his hair and makes his eyes water, as the great shadow of the gutted Paris-class frigate _Hand of Merope_ looms overhead like what Wash imagines destroyed civilizations would look like to the people who'd lived them. "We crashed," he says.

_Oh god that cable really **was** important._

Simmons is doing some kind of examination that Wash is convinced he learned from an instructional video instead of actual experience, looking into his eyes and shading them, then allowing the light to stream back in, checking his ears and nose for blood. "Well, you don't look like you're dying," is his sunny prognosis and Wash pulls away, uncomfortable with so many people fussing over him (three, it's just three, Wash, get used to it).

Wash puts a hand on Tucker's chest to sit up on his own and at Grif's wolf whistle Tucker stands, a fist clenched. "Grif if you don't shut up I'm gonna sprain your _other_ knee."

"Oh boy, doing what? Your boyfriend's right there, he might get j- NO GET OFF ME NO-"

"Caboose, go help Tucker," Wash mumbles as he rolls from his backside onto his knees, wobbling, disoriented. He feels Caboose bounce up and slam into both Tucker and Grif more than he sees it because his eyes are fixed on the ground beneath him as he presses his hands into it. The ship crashed. The ship crashed. They all survived, somehow. This isn't Sidewinder, he doesn't have the gaping gored hole of an AI's suicide bleeding into the back of his head.

"Uh, are you gonna throw up? You look like you're gonna throw up." Simmons bends into Wash's space again and Wash prepares himself to pull away when the butt of Sarge's shotgun comes between them and prods Simmons into leaning back.

"Back up Simmons, give the man room to think." Sarge sits there with his gun back in his lap, giving Wash a look more knowing than he's used to and Wash is intensely grateful. The gratitude takes over, swells up and above the horror of the crash (how many are dead, _how many_ ) when he realizes that the reason he's out here instead of in there is because someone found him and rescued him. Most likely, _all of them_ found him and rescued him.

He looks at them each in turn. Simmons, hovering without trying to look like he's hovering, Sarge pointedly not watching him and scratching at the creases in his survival suit. Grif yelping as Tucker puts him into a grappling hold that Wash recognizes as one he'd taught him, Caboose wrapping them both up in his great big arms and hoisting them into the air, walking them over to the pond with an invitation to go swimming with him.

Carolina, off somewhere else, taking care of business elsewhere, again. As usual. But she'll be back, she always makes her way back somehow.

"I'm...I'm good," Wash says again, and he looks up at Simmons and nods and this time, he notices, he sounds like he means it.

 

**Author's Note:**

> unedited skypefic makes a FURIOUS COMEBACK  
> fic regurgitated onto [saltsanford](http://archiveofourown.org/users/saltsanford/pseuds/saltsanford) in a realtime, no-holds-barred feelsdump


End file.
